Friday, 24 February 2012

This is my dad, Charlie. He looks a serious fellow here, doesn't he? This was a works shot taken during his time at Burroughs in the 1950s and 60s. My father came from humble beginnings but was always proud of the way he had kept on studying as an adult and subsequently developed his career from manual worker to a senior managerial role.

I recently came across his old curriculum vitae, taking his career up to the 1960s. It had all kind of details on it and filled in several gaps I had in his movements during the second world war and the 1950s. I never really thought of a cv as a worthwhile document in my family history research but I was wrong. Here's what I discovered:

1936 - 1939: worked as a Message Boy and Apprentice Turner at Babcock and Wilcox (Valve Manufacturers), Dumbarton.

My dad had mentioned various jobs he'd done as a teenager - paper boy, giving out leaflets on the steamer on Loch Lomond - but I didn't know the details of this one until now. I've even tracked down photographs of the Babcock and Wilcox plant so I can see the kind of environment he worked in. This is also where he must have sustained the injury that led to his hospitalisation for a number of years.

1939 - 1943: period of illness due to hip injury.

I knew that he'd been hospitalised on an island off the west coast of Scotland for the majority of this period but his CV lists the hospital as 'St Andrew's Home, Millport, Isle of Cumbrae'. It appears to have been closed down now but I'm still trying to find any history of the hospital.